Thursday, 29 September 2011

FYI: Hollow Earth Map

So, it seems Jules Verne got another thing right - the Hollow Earth does exist and here at last is a map to prove it! With my recent re-viewing of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I began to wonder about other Verne prophecies and considered writing about the idea of the Hollow Earth (as suggested in Journey to the Centre of the Earth - and no I don't have a copy of the old 1959 Pat Boone movie).

In 1818, John Symmes, Jr. suggested that the Earth consisted of a hollow shell about 1300 km thick, with openings at both poles with 4 inner shells. Symmes proposed making an expedition to the North Pole hole and US president at the time, John Quincy Adams, indicated he would approve of this but he left office before this could occur. The new President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, halted the attempt - possibly due to his beliefs in a flat earth.

In the 20th century, the Nazi Thule Society reported much about Tibetan myths of openings into the Earth. There is a theory that Hitler ordered a research journey for such an opening in Antarctica, based on a speech of Admiral Dönitz in front of a German submarine in 1944, when he claimed "The German submarine fleet is proud of having built an invisible fortification for the Führer, anywhere in the world." During the Nuremberg Trials, Dönitz spoke of "an invisible fortification, in midst of the eternal ice." So folks, keep your eyes open when travelling - you never know when you'll come across an opening.